**Source:** Lenin Collection XVI, p. 91
**Date:** 1905-04-06

## THE SECOND STEP

The matter concerns the beginning of the work of the III Congress of the Party. Lenin writes to Krasikov on Wednesday, April 5, and assumes that the Congress will begin no earlier than Monday (April 10). In reality, however, the Congress was opened only on April 25.

Members of the CC who were part of the Organizational Committee for convening the Congress made a final attempt to come to an agreement with the Council of the Party regarding recognition of the Congress and gave it a time limit for its answer.

* The majority of delegates from the provinces were first directed to Petersburg to report to dentist Yu. Lavrentieva and from there were forwarded abroad.

* This refers to No. 1 of the "Diary of a Social-Democrat" dated April 5 (March 23), 1905. The articles and notes from this issue were included in Volume XI of the Collected Works of G. V. Plekhanov.

4 Leaflets of the Organizational Bureau and the CC—see below the article "The Second Step."

5 In No. 13 of *Vperyod* under the heading "The Organizational Question," a draft report to the III Congress (Ivanov—A. A. Bogdanov) from the Organizational Bureau has been published.

* Report by Krasikov, who was a delegate to the III Congress from the Caucasian Committee.

In No. 94 of *Iskra* dated April 7 (March 25), mention is made of a leaflet just published by the newspaper *Vperyod* under the heading "The Second Step." The article is entirely reprinted in No. 43 of *Vperyod* dated April 5 (March 23). It is evident that the leaflet came off the press just one or two days before the publication of No. 43 of *Vperyod*. This determines the approximate date of the document as indicated by us.

The Appeal and Letter of the CC and the Appeal of the Organizational Bureau and CC, included in Lenin's article, are printed according to No. 43 of *Vperyod*. In the manuscript, insertion marks were made in the appropriate places and in an unknown hand: "sent to typesetting" or "already typeset."

## THE SECOND STEP

SEPARATE REPRINT FROM NO. 13 OF *VPERYOD*.
[Geneva, April 5 or 6, 1905.]

In issue 11 of *Vperyod* we welcomed the first step taken by the Council of the Party, which has been left without a party. We asked ourselves: will the Council have enough intelligence and honesty to take the second step along the new path? Now we have just received news from Russia that the second step has been taken by the CC. Here are the documents on this matter which can be published immediately.

1) [Letter] Appeal of the CC to the Party dated March 4, 1905.

**LENIN COLLECTION**

To the Party.

Comrades! The revolution in Russia has begun! Its prologue has irrefutably demonstrated that the urban proletariat is the principal and decisive force determining its outcome. However, the acceleration of the revolution's outcome, the introduction of systematic planning into the revolutionary struggle of the popular masses, and, in particular, the maximum consideration of the results of the revolution in the interests of the proletariat depend in enormous measure upon the **actual state of the forces and organization of our Party**. History places upon our Party political and moral responsibility before the Russian proletariat, before all our people, and finally, before the proletariat of the whole world. In its present state, our Party is not capable of fulfilling its obligations to the degree which is necessary and possible given the forces at the potential disposal of Rus. S.D. Considering it inopportune and fruitless at present to examine, with documents in hand, to what degree individual prominent party members, influential groups, and entire party institutions have been guided in their internal party activity by profound political motives or by intellectual fashion—in short, setting aside the **question of who and to what degree is guilty** for the profound disorganization of the Party, the CC, conscious of the full weight of the responsibility resting upon it, declares before the entire party of its firm resolve to employ all means at its disposal to ensure the Party's necessary unity and to prevent final schism. An entire series of new questions is thrust before Russian social-democracy almost daily by the development of the revolution. Many of these questions are scarcely outlined by our tactics, since these were worked out chiefly with application to "peaceful" times. A number of others find no answer whatsoever in previous party experience, since they have been raised by new, only recently appearing causes. Party literature, of course, comes to the aid, but its answers do not always satisfy local workers in terms of completeness, unity, and universally recognized authority. In very recent times, a considerable number of committees, united after separate conferences, have adopted a policy of distrust toward the central institutions of the Party existing on the basis of the party Charter adopted at the 2nd Congress of the Party, and have carried this to the point of forming their own organ, their own center, and are now working under the convocation of their own congress. Finally, in the summer of this year, the time comes, determined by the Party's Charter, for the convocation of the 3rd regular Congress. Under such circumstances, the CC sees the sole and last means of preventing schism in the convocation of a general party congress in the immediate future.

Convinced that the fruitfulness of the Congress's work—both in terms of the elaboration of the most serious tasks thrust upon the Party by the current political moment, and in terms of achieving genuine, lasting Party unity—will depend entirely upon comprehensive and full representation at the Congress of all significant and influential currents, the CC, on the basis of the Charter, has decided to make broad use of its right to invite comrades with consultative voice in order to ensure the completeness of representation. Bearing in mind that the discord that corrodes the Party has led in some places to a direct split from the committees by significant groups, and in others to sharp antagonism between committees and the periphery, the CC proposes to send its representatives to the Congress with consultative voice: 1) To all groups separated from the committees before March 1 of the current year, 2) to all peripheries of major industrial centers, where in the area of activity of the committee there are not fewer than 20,000 workers and where more than half the members of the periphery have expressed distrust of the local committee on the question of choosing a delegate to the Congress.

Note. The CC proposes to consider as part of the periphery, in this case, only those comrades who, while being part of one of the sub-committee organizations, carry out active revolutionary work under the guidance and supervision of the committee, expressed in propaganda, agitation, organization, writing, printing and distribution of literature. Furthermore, since according to the Charter the general party congress is convoked by the Council of the Party, the CC, in inviting local committees of the party to express themselves in favor of the convocation of the 3rd Congress as the sole means now available to ensure party unity, will, for its part, through its representatives in the Council of the Party, support its decision for the immediate convocation of the Congress and even now will undertake a series of practical preparatory measures. Moreover, the CC declares that it will do everything in its power to attract to the matter of implementing the convocation of the Congress the "Organizational Bureau," which arose for this purpose at the initiative of several committees, whose preparatory work might serve to accelerate and facilitate the convocation of the Congress.

Note. Details of the involvement of the "Organizational Bureau" and committees of the so-called "majority" in the preparation for the convocation of the Congress should be worked out by mutual agreement. Seeing in the convocation of an immediate general party congress the last means of preventing schism and of creating tactical unity of the Party, which alone can give us the necessary strength to fulfill the great tasks standing before Russian social-democracy, the CC calls upon all members of the Party to the most energetic preparation of the immediate Congress.

March 4, 1905
CC of the R.S.D.R.P.

2) Letter of the CC to the Bureau of Committees of the "Majority" dated March 6, 1905.

On March 4 the CC decided to address the party committees with a call to prepare for the 3rd party Congress and, for its part, decided to take measures to convoke the Congress in as short a time as possible.

Since the success of the general party Congress and the earliest realization of its convocation depend upon the joint work, to the extent possible, of all comrades and organizations now speaking out in favor of the Congress, the CC addresses the Organizational Bureau of committees of the so-called "majority" with a proposal for mutual agreement in this matter and joint work for the purpose of the speediest convocation of the Congress and the realization of the most complete representation at it of the entire party.

March 6, 1905
CC of the R.S.D.R.P.

3) Appeal to the Party in the name of the CC and the Bureau of Committees of the "Majority" jointly, dated March 12, 1905.

To the Party.

The CC and the Bureau of Committees of the "Majority," having assumed the initiative for the convocation of the 3rd party Congress, declare to all party organizations that, proceeding from the pressing necessity of the immediate convocation of the 3rd party Congress for the establishment of general party tactics and organizational unity of the Party, they have reached agreement regarding the joint organization of the Congress on the following bases:

1) The Congress is convoked on the basis of the programs set forth in the declarations of the CC and the Bureau of Committees of the "Majority," from which the following agenda flows:

a) Constitution of the Congress,
b) Questions of party tactics,
c) Questions of party organization:
   1) Organization of centers,
   2) Organization of committees,
   3) Mutual relations between different party institutions and their parts.
d) Reports,
e) Elections.

2) All party organizations having the right to participate in it with deciding voice according to the Charter of the 2nd Congress are invited to the Congress (i.e., 4 Caucasus Com., Moscow, Petersburg, Tver, Tula, Nizhny Novgorod, Northern, Kiev, Odessa, Ekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Donets, Voronezh, Nikolaev, Saratov, Samara, South-Western, Polessk, Astrakhan, League; Unions: Donetsk, Crimean, Urals, and Siberian,* while all the rest—with consultative voice.

3) The organizational work on the convocation of the 3rd party Congress carried out thus far by the Bureau of Committees of the "Majority" is sanctioned.

4) Further work on the convocation of the Congress is carried out jointly by the Bureau of Committees of the "Majority" and the CC, which form an Organizational Committee.

5) The resolution published in No. 89 of *Iskra* by the Council of the Party against the convocation of the 3rd party Congress, the CC and the Bureau of Committees of the "Majority" do not recognize as a basis for suspending work on the organization of the Congress.

March 12, 1905.

The Agreement of the CC with the Bureau of Committees of the "Majority" of the same March 12, 1905, for now is not subject to publication.*

* * *

Thus, we can celebrate complete moral victory! Russia has prevailed over the émigrés abroad. Party spirit has triumphed

* Regarding the Committees of Riga, Smolensk, Kursk, Orel-Bryansk, Kazan, Yaroslavl, Elizavetgrad, and Kuban, see clause 3 of the agreement between the CC and the Bureau of Committees of the "Majority."